Scoring early and often, the Uni-President Lions put up four quick runs over the first three innings, before going on to defeat the Lamigo Monkeys 9-2 at the Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium yesterday to sweep the weekend series against their nemeses from Taoyuan.
Starter Yuya Kamada was at his best once again as he cruised through to the seventh inning in a three-hit gem, before the Lions’ bullpen came up with a scoreless eighth and ninth to preserve the Japanese ace’s league-leading 10th win of the season.
Other than a solo shot that he surrendered to the Monkeys’ Chung Cheng-yo and a pair of doubles he served up in a meaningless seventh, the righty was virtually untouchable with a repertoire of pitches that kept the Lamigo hitters off-balance nearly the entire game.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
On the offensive side, the night belonged to Chang “OEO” Tai-shan and Pan “TAKE” Wu-hsiung, who went deep against the Monkeys’ pitching on combined six-for-eight hitting, with four RBIs.
Also starring was Liu Fu-hao, who drove an offering from newly signed Monkeys starter Ben Moore over the right-center wall to spoil the American right-hander’s CPBL debut.
With the win, Kamada became the fastest player to reach the 10-win mark in league history as he took only 11 games to accomplish the feat.
The Japanese hurler could rewrite the record books for most wins in a season with 26 victories if he maintains his current pace.
ELEPHANTS 2, BULLS 0
The Brother Elephants also took care of business in their contest in Taoyuan yesterday as they blanked the Sinon Bulls at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium to sweep their weekend set in grand fashion.
Luis Gonzalez gave the overworked Elephants bullpen some much needed rest by going the distance for skipper Chen Rei-chen in a complete-game shutout to win his third of the year.
He scattered seven singles to the Bulls, but managed to keep the shutout intact with a season-high 13 strikeouts to strand eight Sinon runners on the night.
Bulls starter Lin Chi-wei matched Gonzalez’s success inning for inning through the fifth with a two-hit effort in a scoreless tie, but his luck ran out in the sixth when the Elephants’ Peng “Chia Chia” Cheng-min singled in a runner from second with a liner to left to score the game’s first run. That was more than ample for the men in the golden uniforms.
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
Bayern Munich on Sunday were crowned German champions for the 34th time, giving striker Harry Kane his first major trophy, after second-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen drew 2-2 at SC Freiburg. Bayern’s 3-3 draw at RB Leipzig on Saturday, when the Bavarians came from two goals down to take the lead before conceding a stoppage-time equalizer, meant defending Bundesliga champions Leverkusen needed to win at Freiburg to delay the title party. Leverkusen were two goals down before scoring twice in the final 10 minutes, but Xabi Alonso’s side could not find a third, as Bayern reclaimed the title at the first attempt after
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
A man fell from the 6.4m-high Clemente Wall in right field at PNC Park in Pittsburgh during Wednesday night’s game between the Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Right after Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Pirates ahead 4-3, players began waving frantically for medical personnel and pointing to the man, who had fallen onto the warning track. The fan was tended to for approximately five minutes by members of both the Pirates and Cubs training staffs as well as PNC personnel before being removed from the field on a cart. The team issued a statement shortly
RSS